29 Sept., 2008 -- A look back to 1953

My Dad was a telephone lineman in Colorado back in the good old days. They hired Stuart Mace and his Huskies from Aspen to take the Mountain Bell linemen up to Cottonwood Pass near Tincup, between Aspen and Gunnison on the Continental Divide. That's Thad looking out from behind the guy on the sled. In the next picture, he's on the sled, has on the funny hat with the ear flaps.

The snow was so deep, they could stand on the sleds and fix the lines. Looks like they found a cabin buried under the snow in which to hole up for shelter. I don't know if they spent the night. I regret that I didn't pay more attention to the stories, or whether I ever heard the stories at all when I was a kid. I would have been 11 then.

These mountain passes were closed to vehicle traffic in the winter, and some of them still close, such as Independence Pass between Aspen and Leadville, connecting the western watershed from the eastern slope and the Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo areas.

All the water on the western slope (Aspen, Gunnison, Glenwood Springs where we lived) runs into the Colorado River and down the Grand Canyon to Boulder Dam, then separates California and Arizona until it reaches Mexico and the Gulf of California. All the water on the eastern slope
runs into the Gulf of Mexico via the Rio Grande, or the Arkansas River that starts at Leadville, or the Platte, or numerous others running out of the Rockies.

So much for the history lesson, eh? There will be a test.